Soc. Forums Leader

I'm actually a (fairly) accomplished freelance writer, so if you need anything edited you can send it to me in a personal message and I'll edit it for you, and edit it well.
Note: Usually I get paid for this.

I really think a new playable tier would be useful because alot of the guys in OU and BL are just not good enough to play with against other people in OU so with the new playable tier could comprise of those guys as well as some top of UU guys.

I am also willing to write an OU or UU RMT, although not anymore I had spent some time on both top 50s for those tiers

Super Moderator

People who want to write about Pokemon but aren't sure what, here's something I posted earlier in a private forum that might be of use. Please contact a Smog Staff member if you want to write. The more, the merrier!

First, a lot of the articles are about theoretical examples, pre-made movesets, and similar analysis of things we already know. Featured Pokémon and Type Analysis, for example are both largely just the Pokémon Analyses we have on site, sometimes more detailed, sometimes less detailed (yes, I said it). The team support and environment fields are a step in the right direction, but often it doesn't get much better than:

- This Pokémon is great with Forretress, because Forretress lays down and erases entry hazards
- This Pokémon is great with [Pursuit pkmn] because it's afraid of Latias/Rotom/Gengar etc.
- This Pokémon is great with [Pokémon that is afraid of Latias/Rotom/Gengar etc.] because it can remove them easily

This is nice, but still theoretical. I would like to have articles based on actual battles. Not just battling randoms (though this is part of ladder/tournament play as well), but battles between two good players. This opens a whole new door to articles.

First, we can start putting in War Stories. Not just ones posted for their great flavor or funny gimmicks, but where one or both players explain their decisions, and perhaps other seasoned players comment on their thoughts and decisions and give their own.

Example, we take the ST6 battle between Earthworm and panamaxis, or Earthworm and hanke, and we ask them to rationalize behind their moves. This can be difficult since it's been a while, so a better idea might be to use this in conjunction with the #stark cup, which usually has at least three good players involved. The good player doesn't have to be a good writer to do this: they can just give their thoughts to whoever is in charge of the article, and then he/she will just make it readable. It could be some sort of interview.

Even an article about prediction, or an article about long term thinking, simply doesn't give as much insight about battling as an article that's about...a battle. There will be no examples: they would be real situations people encounter.

Another useful article would be a follow-up to the leads article. Not just why they're good, but how you play them against other common leads. We now know Swampert, Azelf and Metagross are great leads because they can get Stealth Rock up and force things to switch, but what should you do when you run into another good lead? Should you always exchange laying down Stealth Rock? Should you consider going for the surprise attack? Just a "depends on your team" isn't enough here, I would much rather see a very elaborate list of "what if's". It gives people insight on best/worst case scenarios and all that jazz.

Despite all this, it's obvious you can't teach people how to play well through test. They have to actually play the game and practice. But if articles are going to be written, we might as well go as deep as possible.

Apologies in advance but I'm not going to write above articles, because I'm no prime D/P battler. I can help writing, think about lay-out and stuff, and I can hound people about getting them done, but I can't pretend I know what's best to do in almost every situation.

@Mekka's post.
Why don't you get a Warstory each smog issue and then get someone to do a full analysis of the battle from an outsider's perspective. Just like how people look at chess games and label certain moves as blunders and what not. Especially if the battle wasn't between two particularly skilled players just showing what they did wrong in a non malicious way would provide great insight into how battlers should be battling when under pressure.

More of a suggestion since I don't think this would be allowed for me to write, but how about hosts of big mafia games/Mekkah write an article(similar to postgames) about the game(Example: Earthworm/Outlaw/Mekkah would write an article similar to the postgame about Absolution Mafia, giving their thoughts, and explaining the strategies etc. for newbies, who might not fully comprehend what had been going on due to the anonymous setting)?

I don't want to write for The Smog per se...I just have a decent Lead moveset (In my opinion but then again I suck and competitive battling), and was wondering how to get it rated to be put into The Smog...Do I post it here? PM someone? Did I miss the thread for it?

First, we can start putting in War Stories. Not just ones posted for their great flavor or funny gimmicks, but where one or both players explain their decisions, and perhaps other seasoned players comment on their thoughts and decisions and give their own.

Example, we take the ST6 battle between Earthworm and panamaxis, or Earthworm and hanke, and we ask them to rationalize behind their moves. This can be difficult since it's been a while, so a better idea might be to use this in conjunction with the #stark cup, which usually has at least three good players involved. The good player doesn't have to be a good writer to do this: they can just give their thoughts to whoever is in charge of the article, and then he/she will just make it readable. It could be some sort of interview.

Even an article about prediction, or an article about long term thinking, simply doesn't give as much insight about battling as an article that's about...a battle. There will be no examples: they would be real situations people encounter.

Click to expand...

Absolutely agree with the warstories, I know that's the one thing I really care for reading in the articles. Answers like this one (although I would prefer it in even greater detail) would be so entertaining for me to read. I'll be happy to do the interviews and write the article if we can find a good battle - prefer UU since that's where I do all my battling. It doesn't have to be a conventional, turn-by-turn warstory, it can be a longer-term analysis, viz. "I can bring Froslass in on Chansey eventually and Pain Split up".

Moderator

I'd love an opportunity to contribute. I've been waiting for a decision to be made on Latias, so I'm pretty rusty at OU (though I do play CAP). So I'm probably better off writing about something related to UU or possibly Ubers.

I have a suggestion to add on the part where Nintendo is trolling us... the more obvious ones being Flareon not getting Flare Blitz and the Quiet Heatran with Eruption...

Here is a less blatant example. Ninetales. Surely something with the ability to curse people for 1000 years must be a Ghost type? She can even learn Grudge for the love of God. And she must have incredible power (Special Attack) to do that, yet she has only a base 81 Special Attack. Imagine Ninetales being Fire/Ghost, she would certainly be able to change Infernape movesets, considering the Infernape can't touch her with either STAB attack, and Grass Knot does pitiful damage, hell, he would be forced to use Stone Edge or Earthquake. And Ninetales BST is 505, while the most used Pokemon in OU, Scizor has only 500. It's because Ninetales has extra stats in place where her wouldn't make it any better, like a base 75 defense isn't going make her take an Earthquake any better than a Houndoom with base 50 defense >_>

More insulting is though, her counterpart Arcanine has a BST of 560, 55 points higher than hers.

Where do I submit articles for The Smog? I've been wanting to write analysis but I can't think of a topic with the knowledge of not being able to submit it anyway. If anyone can point out where I can submit articles, it would really help me think of a nice topic. I also want to write for the Smog because English Journalism is coming up.

You can submit it to an editor of the Smog in PM (see the announcement). It's best to run an idea by them first, though, since your article topic may be unsuitable / covered in another article / there may be other things you need to be aware of beforehand. (Not me, I don't approve ideas, sorry...)

I'd really like to write for the Smog, maybe an article about leads, how to use different leads, not just Metagross and Azelf and Swampert. There are a lot of really good leads who are hiding like pearls under a clam's shell. Torterra, for one, can get Stealth Rock, deal damage to famous leads (EQ vs. Gross, Wood Hammer vs. Azelf and Swampert), and take a hit or two with out saying ouch once.(Except if the attack is Ice, then he'd be frozen dead before he gets to scream from pain.)

And I agree with Lady Gaga, Ninetails should be Fire\Ghost with its base Sp.Atk around 115. Then we'd have something that would be a threat to Scizor (Flamethrower but it can take a beating via U-Turn), Mence (Ice Beam, it should learn that, but it can take a beating from Crunch, but who runs that?), Infernape (CC is nullified, it can hit back with a Water type move). And those are at the top of my head.

I would absolutely love to write, although I have very little experience when it comes to competitive battling and stuff. I've got an Anti-Lead Weavile, but that's all :')
However, I am willing to write about anything you want me to...I have ideas but I'm not totally sure what's appropriate? If you get me haha.

For the Smog, we should have a rap section on one pokemon a month. The rap should be about 1 pokemon, and in the rap should talk about how that pokemon works in its respective tier. This way, we could educate battlers about pokemon they might consider putting on their teams without being too boring about it. I have a rap already for Kyogre if you're interested.